What exactly is this?!

[Suzanne302]

 

 

As I prepare to open my new room to AirBNB I research existing rooms in the area. I come across a “room” for $787/night and another for more than $1300/night. There are pictures of hotels in the area in which rooms are NOT that expensive. 

This “host” has more than 12,000 listings around the world.

What is going on here?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Elena87 OK so we know how they make their money although the 21% uplift will be eaten into significantly by Airbnb fees. Question now is how Airbnb let them advertise that the listing complies with the covid cleaning protocols even though the Gospodin team have never been anywhere near these listings.

We will have to await an answer from @Catherine-Powell to understand why Airbnb let these people operate. Could be a long wait I fear........

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 @Elena87  no... it won't be eaten bc guests will pay  the hotel price + 20% agency fee + 20% ABB fee..

[Kath9]

@Suzanne302some of the rooms are like $3,500 per night! What the...? @Mike-And-Jane0, it seems that the 'cheaper' rooms are in places like Indonesia, where you would normally pay much less. If people actually book these, they clearly have more money than sense. Jeez, it makes you wonder if your own listing is somewhere in that 12,081! @Branka-and-Silvia0 , thanks for the link to that long but fascinating article. These scams demonstrate just how far Airbnb has moved away from its original idea. One 'person' (or company or whatever) should simply not be allowed to have this many listings. It's completely unethical and is a major driver of housing shortages and rental extortions worldwide. The fact that Airbnb allows this to happen is outrageous.

[Suzanne302]

@Kath9  Exactly. How can Airbnb allow one host to have 12,000+ listings. And they change daily! I mean, certainly Airbnb should have some kind of flagging system once a host hits a certain number of listings to see if they're legit! They have a flagging system for far less nefarious things than that.

What this "Host" is doing may be technically legal, but it's highly unethical. They are advertising rooms they don't have any authority over and they are calling hotel rooms "Bed and Breakfasts" and listing them under "Private Room." These were not listed in the hotel category in the search filter I used.

[Suzanne302]

THIS is going to make a great news story! Again, it may be legal, and it may even be within Airbnb's TOS. But if this is a common practice, people should know up front before they book. And as is obvious with the reviews, they don't. Why would you book through Airbnb with a travel agent?

[Helen427]

@Suzanne302 @Alba160 @Branka-and-Silvia0 @Mike-And-Jane0 @Elena87 @Kathy9 

Maybe it's someone who has a Bot Farm??

And a gripe with ABB, and are truly out to ruin them.

One can never tell with so much rubbish and Lack of Borders with the internet these days, and there will be those who are paid per like/ thumbs down to destroy others Reputations in aid of promoting their own businesses. including after a Quick Buck or three.

What year was the account formed?

It must be some/one with a lot of time on their hands and Tech Skills.

@Brian @Catherine-Powell @Airbnb @Nick @Stephanie @Francesca @Sergi @Noriko @Anna @May @Liv @Quincy as Admins and involved with ABB on the coalface, is this serious issue that @Suzanne302  and others raised here being addressed?

[Alba160]

@Suzanne302 @Branka-and-Silvia0 @Mike-And-Jane0 

Hopefully  you will see the above response. 

[Alba160]

'Team Godospin' is basically the 'host face' of a Proptech (property tech) company - WinwInntech, now trading as Staykeepers - owned by two London-based Bulgarian brothers in their early 30s, Ivo and Miroslav Godospinov.

Despite having little to no experience in either the property development or hospitality sectors (previous employment includes security guarding and touting for modelling/acting work), the brothers set up 5 seperate companies relating to property leasing, lettings and development in the space of 2 years (2015 to 2017)

4 of those 5 companies were quickly dissolved, with only the original - WinWin Lettings, incorporated in 2015 - still active. (Latest available figures from 2019 show a £0 cash balance, with total assets of £412K, and total liabilities of £1.22M)

In June 2019, the Godospinovs set up yet another company, WinWin Proptech, now trading as Staykeepers, the nature of which has been officially recorded as 'information technology services' - a favourite ploy of certain 'tech' companies (most notably, Airbnb) to exempt themselves from rules, regulations, disclosure requirements and legal obligations that all other companies operating in the property arena are bound by, and must adhere to.

As per 2020 figures, WinWinProptech had just under £11K in cash, and a total net worth of minus £600K. Nevertheless, some sources were placing a valuation of between £18 - £20 million on the company.

You can learn more about Staykeepers here..
https://www.staykeepers.com/

Much of the happy-clappy narrative and buzzwords used throughout will no doubt sound familiar, and make it difficult to work out what the company is really all about. However, a few key paragraphs allow more clarity and insight into the true nature and future plans of the business, and of the corporations with whom they 'collaborate'..

*"Staykeepers helps student accommodation & multifamily operators generate 20 to 60% above long-term market revenue from empty units by accommodating short, mid and long-term residents"*

*"Everything we do is dedicated to creating value and improving the bottom line for institutional landlords"*

*"When it comes with planning restrictions to the developments, we can assist by connecting our clients with third party companies who can assist with obtaining planning permission for accommodation"*

So, what does all this stuff mean, and why does it matter to anyone?
Well, it matters very, very much to anyone who is a small, individual "back to our roots" host on Airbnb. It matters to anyone desperately and unsuccessfully trying to buy a home - or those trying to avoid foreclosure - in the many markets worldwide where 'institutional landlords' (ie PE firms/REITs/vulture funds) are snapping up millions of properties in sweetheart deals, leaving literally nothing available for regular buyers. It matters to anyone who has a son or daughter planning to go to college, only to discover that all the institution-owned purpose-built (cheaply, with lax building requirements) student accommodation is now priced way out of any regular person's league, whilst simultaneously masquerading as 'aparthotels' and 'boutique hotels' on platforms such as Airbnb. It even matters if granny or grandad is in Senior Living accommodation - it's increasingly likely that they could suddenly find themselves living next door to a revolving cast of rowdy short term renters.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-25/investors-chasing-housing-target-massive-pools-of...

But where do the likes of Staykeepers come into all this?
It's quite simple really. For some time now, Airbnb has been forging relationships with proptech companies that are developing software for 'end-to-end services' relating to short term rentals, and (ostensibly) mid- to long-term rentals also. There are several different variations on the theme but the basic premise is this - institutional investor buys up (or develops) entire buildings, turns the whole lot into rentals (typically at highly inflated rates), 'allows' the tenants to 'legally' list their places on Airbnb 'when they're away' (exclusively on Airbnb in many instances, such as in the case of vulture fund/Airbnb shareholder/notorious serial evictor of tenants Greystar, for example), and in return, grants the tenant a reduction in their already sky-high rents. Big win for institutional owner, big win for Airbnb, not so much of a win for the tenant, really. And *certainly* not a win for the unfortunate residents who have no wish to participate in such a scheme, but inadvertently find themselves living in a horribly managed giant Airbnb frat-house, with out of control guests marauding through their hallways every night of the week.

Many proptech companies such as Staykeepers also offer to handle property sales for owners (Staykeepers 'partner' with firms such as Savills and CBRE), punting out the properties on Airbnb to fill the void whilst awaiting sales. (Ever wonder why so many guests are complaining bitterly about last minute cancellations by hosts wrecking their holiday plans in recent times..?)

The most notable - and openly publicised "Proptech company as a host" deal that Airbnb has entered into so far is their recent partnership with RealPage, considered by some to be *the* preeminent real estate asset management software firm in the world (and acquired last December by PE firm Thoma Bravo - one of the largest and most active private equity firms in the world - for $9.6 billion). RealPage has come up with a full-service app called 'Migo', and all going to plan, 'Migo' should soon prove to be the biggest, most ubiquitous and most 'successful' Airbnb megahost in the history of the company.

You can read for yourself below how,
"with the Migo home sharing solution at your fingertips, you can harness the power of RealPage® to deliver the only comprehensive suite of technology and services needed to successfully manage, monitor, and monetize home sharing on Airbnb in multifamily communities"
https://www.realpage.com/migo-home-sharing/

Next post following 

[Alba160]

Or, if you want a really good laugh (or cry), check out this Forbes puff-piece, in which they risibly try to spin the Airbnb/RealPage collaboration as a huge blessing for tenants, and as an actual viable solution to affordable housing crises everywhere
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennifercastenson/2021/06/17/airbnb-and-realpage-partner-to-make-housin...

Airbnb has already been testing this self-serving 'partnership with friendly buildings' model since 2016/17, with its disastrous 'Airbnb powered by Niido' venture, for example - a long and tawdry tale that ultimately culminated in lawsuits by Airbnb, countersuits by the developer, mayhem caused by unmonitored anti-social guests (constant parties, puke in the lifts and sh*t in the swimming pool were amongst the regular complaints) and displacement of long-term residents. Yet they still seem determined to plough ahead with it, only on a gargantuan scale this time. What could possibly go wrong??
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2020/01/27/airbnb-sues-miami-real-estate-developer-it-onc...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-30/surprise-you-live-in-a-giant-airbnb

If small, local hosts - particularly in non-urban or secondary markets - believe that this is not something that will affect them.. they're very mistaken. The vultures are spreading their wings far and wide - if there's a buck to be made in any market, large or small, they're coming there too. And let's face it - it's a safe bet that Airbnb's algorithms will be prioritising and promoting the listings of their more affluent, powerful 'partners', just as they have been doing in the major markets for years. Expect the tsunami of arbitrary delistings of excellent, well performing superhosts to continue unabated too. After all, they're the ones most likely to snaffle the bookings that could otherwise land in the laps of the underperforming megahosts.

Coincidentally, RealPage and Greystar have recent history too. And not in a good way. Some might consider any collaboration between Airbnb, Greystar (over 740K rental units under ownership/management globally) and RealPage, as something of an Unholy Trinity.
https://therealdeal.com/la/2020/05/26/greystar-probed-tenants-character-reputation-rental-history-la...

https://theamericangenius.com/housing/corporate/are-rental-companies-taking-too-much-advantage-of-ap...

But back to Staykeepers and their 12000+ listings on Airbnb's platform. Well, we can only speculate as to how or why that could be, can't we? But it would be quite a stretch to assume that Airbnb is unaware of 'Team Godospin'/the Godospinovs, or what they're up to on their platform. Fact is, the G Bros are very well known to Airbnb...

*"The platform it [Staykeepers] has created attracted the attention of Airbnb, which post-IPO and post-pandemic is also looking more closely at the longer-term letting market, with the access to the portfolios of institutional property owners appealing to the tech giant"*

Intriguingly, in an April interview with BisNow, it was claimed that Staykeepers only had 1200 units under management, with hopes for 2000 post-pandemic. Hard to imagine any sort of hyper-scaling that might have taken place, that would have resulted in a 10-fold inventory increase in just a couple of months though.

*"The company currently manages about 1,200 units where it finds short-term lets, and post lockdown, the company hopes to manage up to 2,000 units, and it is planning potential expansion into the U.S. and Europe"*
https://www.bisnow.com/london/news/multifamily/these-brothers-went-from-security-guards-to-running-a...

Intriguingly, the Godospinov Bros are currently embarking on another fundraising round, so it would be very much in their financial interests to project an image/illusion to existing and potential investors, of their company being a much larger, more thriving, strong growth outfit than it perhaps really is. Same could possibly be said for Airbnb. Swathes of extra listings - be they real or imaginary - could beneficially inflate the figures for both companies.

WinWin, indeed.

[Helen427]

Thanks @Alba160 that's very enlightening.

Will we see a similar situation arise here as we have between Juul & Altria ( used to be Philip Morris Tobacco) and Vaping/ e-Cigarette industry ?

That matter is ongoing and also recently been in the Courts of Law in California, USA for those whom are unfamiliar. Articles are freely available with the practices that have and still are taking place in that related industry using keyword, Juul, under News.

It pays to abide by the laws when it comes to setting up a business internationally, and locally.

[Suzanne302]

@Alba160  OMG it's even worse than it looks! THANK YOU for all that info. This is insane.

[Alba160]

Correction: It's  Team Gospodin. Not team Godospin or Godospinov. Cell correction sucks. 

Absolutely, this is really dark stuff. It feels like straight up from the X-files. For those non-believers, hold your horses. Time will tell. And you will 'see'. 

[Kath9]

@Alba160,  wow, you've done your research. Thanks for the info. Dark stuff indeed...

[Elena87]

@Alba160 

https://www.simplecrowdfunding.co.uk/property/detail/192

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Alba160  actually it is Gospodinov , not Godospinov, Ivo and Miroslav, I googled and got many results.